


alone with a heart meant for you

by crossingwinter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-09-19 14:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17003700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: Ben orders Grubhub; Rey's car breaks down.





	alone with a heart meant for you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [walkingsaladshooter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkingsaladshooter/gifts).



> Prompt 3: I love modern AUs in which both Rey & Ben are frank about having issues/needing therapy/are already in therapy/etc. and are both working hard to overcome their traumas & generally finding their way together. Big sucker for that whole trope.
> 
> Title comes from "Alone" from _A Night At The Opera_

At 11:47am, Ben orders Grubhub.  

It’s Christmas, and he’s alone and he’s doing what Jews all over the country do on Christmas.   _ More dumplings than you know what to do with,  _ he remembers his father ordering over the phone when he was a kid.  His dad had always ordered over the phone because there hadn’t been Grubhub when he’d been younger.  The restaurant worker who manned the phones for reservations and delivery had always known what Han would order from the moment that Han opened his mouth—even on Christmas when he was ordering for more than just his little family of three.  

Ben’s alone, though.  His dad’s dead now (his fault), his mom’s not talking to him (also his fault), and he tries not to think of Uncle Luke (for once, not his fault).  Alone, and trying not to think about being alone so he probably should eat. That’s something his therapist keeps telling him to do. When he feels the darkness seeping into his mind, put some food in his body, go to the gym, take a shower, do something other than sit in his dark, lonely, apartment and ruminate on how he’s the reason that his entire family got miserable.

At 11:52, Grubhub sends him a text telling him that his order is being prepared.  Ben gets up and showers. He shaves as well because sure the only person he’s gonna see today is the Grubhub delivery person but he’s looking scruffy even to himself.  

At 12:09, he sees that a text came through five minutes before saying his order was on the way.  

At 12:21, there’s a knock on his front door.

Ben opens it and finds himself face to face with a girl—college-aged if he had to guess—with long brown hair that’s sticking out from under her woolen hat.  “Jade Garden,” she says, holding up the bag. He accepts it with a nod and a half-assed attempt at a smile and closes the door, sits down on the chair by the window and begins to eat his dumplings.  

Outside, he sees the delivery girl head back to her car, and try to start it.  She tries three times before leaning forward and resting her head against the steering wheel and—unmistakably—beginning to cry.

Ben eats another dumpling.

The darkness in his brain has already started to fade and he can hear his mother’s voice (even though she’s not talking to him):  _ Well?  Do something. _

So he gets up, takes his white paper box of dumplings with him and steps outside into the mild cold of late December.

He raps on the window of the girl’s car and she looks up, eyes wide and cracks open the door.

“Want a dumpling?” he asks her.  

“What?”

“Want a dumpling?” he offers her the box.  “You look like you could use a dumpling.”

Her eyes are red and her lips are chapped and she stares at the dumplings hungrily.  

Then she extends a hand and plucks one out of the carton.  “Thanks,” she says. Then she looks up at him. “I—thanks.”

He nods.  “What’s wrong with your car?”

“It’s third-hand and the engine keeps dying.  And I lent my toolkit to Finn last night so I can’t do anything with it right now.”

“Want to borrow mine?”

She gapes at him.  Then smiles. “Christmas spirit?”

“Tzedakah,” he shrugs.  She gives him that blank look of a goy who has just been confronted with Hebrew.  “I’m Jewish,” he explains. “Hence the Chinese food.”

“Oh,” the girl says.  “Happy Channukah?”

“It was two weeks ago,” he shrugs.  “Christmas spirit if you like. Or tzedakah.  Here, have more.” He hands her the dumpling box and goes back into his house, proud of himself for remembering not to be a creep by inviting a strange, younger girl into his house while he gets his toolbox.

It’s a good toolbox, and will probably have all she needs for fixing her car.  It was his dad’s.

He grabs the container of scallion pancakes and tucks it under his arm as he goes back out to the car.  The girl is eating another dumpling. Already, she looks less sad. 

“Scallion pancake?” he offers.

“You don’t have to share your food with me,” she says.

“Up to you,” he shrugs and hands her the toolbox.  She gets out of the car and pops the hood. “I’d offer to help, but my dad always said I was terrible with a wrench.”

“I got it,” she says.  “I work at a body shop.”

“Two jobs and working on Christmas,” Ben says aloud and regrets it immediately because she stiffens.  

“Not all of us have places to go on Christmas,” she retorts.  She doesn’t look at him, and a moment later he hears the sniffling that means she’s started crying again.

“Have a pancake,” he says.

“I don’t need your pity,” she snaps.

“No, but food always helps when you’re having a bad day.  Why do you think I ordered Chinese?” No need to tell her that Chinese was complicated because his dad was complicated and Chinese reminded him of his dad.  No need to tell her how the fatty fried dumpling reminded him of being safe and also made him feel like he could do nothing but destroy.

She looks up at him.  She really has marvelous eyes—and the hazel is sort of complemented by the redness from her tears.  She accepts a scallion pancake and shoves it into her mouth before turning back to her engine.

“I hate Christmas,” she says at last.  “I don’t have a family. And Christmas is a time for family, isn’t it?”

The  _ I wouldn’t know _ dies on his lips because even if Christmas wasn’t something actively celebrated, it still meant dumplings for everyone, Uncle Luke coming in from out of town and Maz and Chewie stopping by just to say hi.  “I guess,” he says instead. 

“Finn’s at Poe’s this year,” she said.  “We used to do something on Christmas, just the two of us.  But then Poe invited him round to his dad’s this year. But not me.  And I’m not—” she lets out a bitter half-laugh “—about to call up my foster father and see if he wants to do something for old time’s sake.  So yeah,” she looks back at him, “two jobs and working on Christmas. Better than thinking about how alone I am.”

“You’re not alone.”  The words spill out of his mouth before he realizes how stupid they are.  Him— _ he’s _ —alone.  She’s mentioned a friend, even if that friend had somewhere to go for Christmas.  Ben doesn’t even have a friend.

She looks up at him and then her tears melt into a smile.

It’s sort of devastating, her smile.  It lights up her face, and even though her lips are chapped, Ben finds he can’t stop staring at them.  

She holds out her hand.  Ben shakes it.

“Rey,” she says. 

“Ben,” he replies.  

“Thanks,” she says.  “For sharing your food.”

“Thanks for being someone I could share it with,” he says a little thickly.  Then, because he hadn’t fucked up earlier he needs to fuck up now, the words, “If you want to come inside for a while, you’re welcome to,” come out of his mouth.  

And he’s glad to see that she accepts his words in the spirit they were intended because her eyes get suddenly very soft.

“Neither are you,” she says at last.  And then, responding to the brow he furrows in confusion, she says, “You’re not alone.  Not either.”

The words do something weird to his heart.  Inflate it a little bit, make it pump a little bit more in his chest.  He just stares at her, blinking furiously because his eyes are stinging too.

She closes the hood of his car, takes his dad’s old toolbox in one hand and Ben’s hand in the other and together they go into his house.

“There’s lo mein,” Ben says heading into the kitchen to grab bowls.  “And beef with broccoli, and some pork with garlic sauce.” He doesn’t usually eat Chinese food out of bowls.  It never makes sense to make bowls dirty when the food comes in containers. But he has a guest (he never has guests) and so he gets out the bowls that he mostly uses for breakfast and grabs some forks.  “And more dumplings.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Rey asks from the living room and he pauses. From the tone of her voice, it sounds like she’s almost suspicious again.  Offering her dumplings outside, and bringing her a toolbox—that was Christmas spirit. Sharing the whole meal, that’s a step too far.

He brings the bowls out into the living room and looks down at her, taking her in again.  Her coat looks too thin for the weather, there are dark circles under her eyes—to go with the red and hazel—and her face is drawn now.  

“Are people usually not nice to you?” he asks.  They’re rarely nice to him, but he doesn’t think that that’s universal.  He elicits a certain reaction from people. He always has. 

“Not really,” she says.  “Not unless they want something.”

“I promise I don’t want something,” he says at once.  “I just wanted to share food.”  _ Some company _ .   _ Some conversation.   _ But if she wanted to sit there silently, he’d let her.  

“I know,” she says quietly, disbelievingly.  And the way she looks at him makes him feel as though all the bullshit is getting stripped away, like she understands his intent in a way that no one ever has.  “And I—I don’t—I—thanks.”

“Yeah,” he says.  “No problem.”

She looks back at the pile of containers he’d ordered from Jade Garden.  “That’s a lot of food,” Rey says. “For just you, I mean.”

“I was planning on saving some of it for leftovers,” he shrugs handing her a bowl.  “Though if today was bad enough, I’d probably have eaten it all anyway.”

“Are you going to the movies later?” Rey asks him.  “Movies and Chinese food, right?” He gives her a smile.  

“Nah,” he says.  “I might pull something up on Netflix though, if I can be bothered.  Nothing’s out right now, and I’m not shelling out twenty bucks to see a movie I don’t give a shit about by myself.”  How many movies had his parents dragged him to, just because it was Christmas and they had to do  _ something _ while the rest of the world seemed to be shut down.  He’d liked some of them; he’d hated others. And he’d always hated going.

He wonders what would happen if his mom texted him, asking him if he wanted to go see something—anything.  He takes another bite of Chinese food and does his best to put the thought from his mind. He catches Rey looking at him again.  She’s got such intense eyes. There’s something stern about them, and soft. Something brave, and kind, and harsh.

“Not worth it without family,” he says grimly.  Rey nods. She understands that, based on her tearful rant earlier.

“They don’t live around here?” she asks.

“My mom lives a fifteen minute drive from here, but I haven’t spoken to her in seven years,” he says glumly.  “And my uncle lives two hours away, but I haven’t spoken to him in longer. My dad’s dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Rey says at once, clearly walking back what she perceives to be an overstep.

He shrugs.  “It’s how things are,” he says.  “It’s how it’s been. It’s—” he gulps down that lump in his throat.  “It’s better this way.” 

Usually, that’s that.  Usually, that’s the end of any conversation that ever happens about his family.  Most people can spot—as Rey had done—that it’s a sore subject, that it’s hard to talk about, that it’s  _ painful _ to talk about.  So it surprises him when, after a beat, Rey says, quietly, intently, “Is it?”

Two little words.  Two little words, whispered in his living room, where he had been alone and angry all morning, and where, suddenly, he feels deflated but in a good way, in a way that makes him feel the way he actually is and not the way he pretends to be all the time.  

He stares at her and she stares back.  Heat is creeping across her face. “No,” he says at last.  “No, it’s not. But it wasn’t better the way it was before, either.”

“What was it like before?”  

There’s something about the way that she asks her questions.  Like she’s not afraid of his answers, or like she’s not afraid of her own curiosity, or—he doesn’t know.  Something about her isn’t afraid of him, and it’s the first time, he thinks, that that’s happened. Most people are afraid of him.  He notices that. His size, usually, or his energy. But not Rey. Rey’s eating his lo mein and looking at him like he’s not a monster.

Maybe that’s why he answers.  Or maybe it’s not. Something about Rey is unlike anyone he’s ever met before.

“I wasn’t supposed to exist.”  Something in her face twitches and he presses on before he loses his nerve.  “I was an accident they kept. My parents. And I was too much for both of them and they never had another kid.  They fought all the time and it was my fault. They broke up and it was my fault. But they always said it wasn’t—that it was something else.  And you can just tell when you’re being lied to about that shit. You just know.” He’s shaking. Shaking out of habit, he thinks, because oddly, he’s not angry.  “Everything fell apart because of me. That’s how they think about it. Even when they deny it. And I—” he sighs and thinks back to his therapist.  _ You were a child.  It can’t have only been your fault.  You weren’t responsible for the actions of fully grown adults.   _ It still feels that way, even though he knows, logically, the truth.  “It ruins your parents for you when that happens. Just ruins them.”

Rey’s watching him.  

“Do you think they love you?” she asks at last.

“My mom will say she does,” he says glumly.  “She might even believe it. But how can you love someone you don’t know?”

“I don’t know,” she says at last, then takes another bite of food.  “But that sounds like it would help, wouldn’t it? Even if it hurts?”

“Maybe,” he says.  Suddenly, intensely, he doesn’t want to talk about it.  “Look—I appreciate that—”

“I wasn’t supposed to exist either,” Rey tells him and the words die in his throat.  “But my parents left me as collateral with their dealer and I never saw them again. Sounds like your mother might be trying.  Mine didn’t.”

And she’s crying again—angrily this time, as if the tears are pooling in her eyes against her will.  She rubs tears forcefully from her eyes and her jaw is set as she looks at him. 

Before he can stop himself, Ben reaches a hand towards her and rubs her shoulder.  Should he be touching her? He hadn’t asked if it was all right, doesn’t know if it would make whatever fragile thing they were sharing shatter. But she doesn’t flinch away from his touch, though she does look surprised by it.  His mother is a hugger. His dad had been too, and his uncle. He doubts, suddenly, that Rey’s ever had someone just hold her through her tears. When he’d been younger, on his worst days, his mother had done that much at least.

“It’s ok to cry,” he tells her.  “It’s ok to feel...whatever you feel.”

Her lip trembles and Ben blurts out before he can stop himself, “Have you seen a therapist about it?”

“I don’t need therapy,” she says.

“How would you know if you haven’t been?”

She swallows.  “I’ve made it this far.”

“And you still feel so alone, even though you have friends.  That’s because of your parents, isn’t it?” She doesn’t say anything, but more tears well in her eyes and her face crumples and Ben gets up and crosses to the sofa she’s sitting on and he pulls her into his arms and just holds her to his chest, the way his mother used to hold him.

It’s the most calming thing he’s ever done in his life, holding her while she cries.

It feels a little bit like he’s holding himself.

He strokes her hair, and keeps his breathing steady and listens to her shaky breath, her shaky heartbeat, until she’s cried herself into a stupor.

“Why are you being so nice?” she asks him again.  This time, though, there’s relief in her voice, as though she believes it, trusts it, but doesn’t know how to understand it.  “You don’t know me or—well, I guess you’re starting to, but you didn’t. Why?”

He looks at her and the answer hurts less now for some reason.  “Because my mother raised me right, I guess.”

Rey rubs her eyes and slowly pulls herself away from him.  “Sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have just started—”

“Don’t apologize,” he says.  “I don’t mind it. It’s—” but he can’t find the word.  

That doesn’t matter though.  Because, tentatively, with cautious eyes, Rey is curling up against him again and he’s wrapping his arm around her.  

“What’s on Netflix?” she asks him.

They load it up and Ben offers to let her pick, but she doesn’t know what to choose, so he picks some dumb looking action flick because it’s what his dad would have wanted to watch if his dad were still alive.  Rey seems to enjoy it. She laughs at the dumb jokes and grabs his hand at one of the jumpscares and Ben relaxes against the warmth of her by his side.

They watch a second movie—less action oriented this time, and a third, but halfway through the third, Rey starts snoring, so he turns it off.  She’s got her head in his lap now, and he strokes her hair before reaching over to grab the blanket that’s hung over the back of the couch to cover her with it.  

He wonders if anyone’s ever covered her with a blanket before.

_ This is something,  _ he thinks as he looks down at her.  He doesn’t know what. He doesn’t know how.  It’s terrifying. But it’s something.

She stirs for a moment under the blanket, then nuzzles at his knee.  

He wonders how today stacks up to her other Christmases.  It’s probably not as shitty as she expected it to be.

It certainly has been less shitty than he expected it to be.  

_ I wasn’t supposed to exist either. _

Carefully, so as not to disturb her, he digs his phone out of his pocket.  Then he unblocks his mother’s number. 

Texts flood in.  Happy birthdays, shanah tovahs, a  _ luke is in the hospital but he should be all right,  _ an  _ i love you  _ here or there.

His throat tightens.

His thumbs move slowly as he types.   _ Hope you had a good Christmas.   _ It’s a weird text to send to his Jewish mother.  But he can’t think of what else to say.  _ Thanks for not abandoning me.  I’m sorry I don’t know how to love you.  I’m trying to learn how to love myself.  _ None of those seem to fit.

But he hits send all the same and Rey stirs again on his lap and he rests his hand on her back and she quietens.

When his phone buzzes a moment later, it’s a text from his mother.

_ I love you sweetheart.  So very much.  _

And he starts to cry. 

Rey wakes at once, which is embarrassing but also not embarrassing.  Because she takes in the sight of him, sitting there, crying, and she sits up and wraps her arms around him and holds him too.  He wonders, as he turns his face into her neck, if it feels to her like she’s holding herself too.

He cries until he’s done, and when he pulls away from Rey, he feels almost shy at the way she’s looking at him.  Like she sees him. He doesn’t think anyone’s ever seen him before. He’s afraid she’s going to leave and never come back and he’ll be alone again.

“Want to get coffee sometime?  When we’re not Christmas-miserable?”  

He’s never heard a more beautiful question in his life.  He’s never felt a more natural smile spread across his face.

“Yeah,” he says.  “Yeah, that sounds great.”

Rey hands him her phone and he puts his number into it.  Then, almost wistfully, she says, “It’s getting late. I really should go.”

_ Don’t go,  _ he wants to say.  Or even,  _ No pressure, but you can stay here and we can just hold one another.   _ Instead, he says, “Text me when you get home safe.”

She beams at him and bites her lip as though considering.  Then she leans forward and kisses him and his breathing stops for a moment because he can’t believe it.  He can’t believe it at all. 

It’s over before it began, and she’s pink as a peach but looking at him with determination.  So he leans forward to kiss her again—a little longer, a little lazier, doing his best to memorize the feel of her lips against his, the way her breath tickles the skin under his nose.  

When she does get into her car, part of him hopes it won’t turn on.  That she’ll have to stay. But it does, and he waves her off, and then goes back into his empty house.

Empty, but not lonely.

He stares at his phone.  Rey’s going to text him in a few minutes.  And his mom—

He takes a deep breath.

_ Shit’s hard and I’m going to try to be better than I— _ no.  No. He deletes that.

_ I’m— _

His fingers hover over his phone.

_ I love you too,  _ he lands on.   _ It’s hard.  But it’s been hard without you too.  I don’t know what’s best, mom. I don’t.  But I hope you had a good Christmas. _

And his mother replies with,  _ We’ll figure it out.  I want to figure it out.  I love you, Ben, _

At the same time that Rey texts,  _ Home safe.  See you soon.  Thank you for today.  I feel light for the first time in ages and it’s thanks to you. _


End file.
